This passionate book documents the legendary grassroots and legal struggle of a determined group of Jewish women from Israel, the United States, and other parts of the world to win the right to pray out loud together as a group at the Western Wall.

'I am hungry for your presence. I hanker for the great blaze of your glance which when you turn it on me, will burn out the husk of my body and draw my soul to you.' Julia O'Faolian's second novel, first published in 1973, offers a rich, vivid portrait of the political and religious turmoil of sixth-century Gaul, wherein we find Radegunda, wife of King Clotair having been seized by him as a prize of war. Radegunda builds a convent, a refuge for the Brides of Christ, and there becomes renowned for her austerity and mysticism. Her religion, however, is fanatical, and her quest for sainthood will serve to undermine the seeming calm of the retreat she has made. 'Vibrant and strange... [a] journey into a darker, wilder moment of history.' Sarah Dunant, Guardian

"Wall's writing is lively and exuberant. She passes her enthusiasm for these writers' works on to the reader. She captures the mood of the times and follows through with the writers' evolution -- sometimes to success, other times to isolation.... Women of the Harlem Renaissance is a rare blend of thorough academic research with writing that anyone can appreciate." -- Jason Zappe, Copley News Service "By connecting the women to one another, to the cultural movement in which they worked, and to other early 20th-century women writers, Wall deftly defines their place in American literature. Her biographical and literary analysis surpasses others by following up on diverse careers that often ended far past the end of the movement. Highly recommended... "Â -- Library Journal "Wall offers a wealth of information and insight on their work, lives and interaction with other writers... strong critiques... " -- Publishers Weekly The lives and works of women artists in the Harlem Renaissance -- Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Bessie Smith, and others. Their achievements reflect the struggle of a generation of literary women to depict the lives of Black people, especially Black women, honestly and artfully.

Women at the Wall is the first ethnographic study of how the arrest, trial, imprisonment, and release of male criminals affects their families, particularly their wives. It relies on first-person accounts by prisoners' wives, providing details about the changing texture of their marital relationships and the accompanying stigmatization. From this book we learn about the effects of enforced spousal separation, and the control husbands maintain even during incarceration. We also learn that wives devise ingenious interpretations and explanations regarding their husbands' criminality, and how they attempt to establish stable, conventional lives for themselves while supporting their husbands through the various stages of the criminal justice system. These women reveal not only their hardships and losses, but also their resourcefulness in coping with their husbands' criminality, their families and friends, and the prison system itself.

Book Review

This engaging feminist approach to Judaism blends the interpretation of primary Jewish sources with contemporary social change. Bonna Devora Haberman shares her first-hand account of the “Women of the Wall” and a feminist approach to traditional Judaism, while interacting with ancient Jewish texts. In a rich network of sources, seaming together scholarship with activism, Haberman analyzes the sacred, with attention to power and gender. While much religious and national culture focuses on death and sacrifice, Haberman proposes an alternative model for a Jewish theology of liberation: birth—no less universal than death. Life-giving rather than life-taking is the nucleus of this work, reformulating performances of gender in a realm of exaggerated sexual difference. Using her experiences with the “Women of the Wall” movement interwoven in scripture, Haberman contributes toward liberating religious culture from its gender oppressions, and rendering religion a liberating force in society.

Magical World is a collection of essays and poems, interwoven with the personal story of a mystic. Rabbi Sara Brandes draws from the ancient wisdom of Jewish tradition to craft a life of meaning in this magical world of ours.